Adaptive bitrate streaming is a technique used in streaming media data (such as video, audio, and other multimedia data) over a communication network. Examples of adaptive bitrate streaming techniques include Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) (DASH), Adobe Dynamic Streaming for Flash, Apple HTTP Live Streaming (“HLS”), and Microsoft Smooth Streaming. DASH is a streaming standard supporting adaptive streaming using the HTTP protocol. In one variant of DASH, media intervals may be composed of one or more layered chunks, and each additional layered chunk added to a base layer chunk may increase the quality of the media presentation for that media interval. Each media presentation may be encoded using a scalable encoder such that each media interval includes a base layer chunk and one or more enhanced layer chunks.
Streamed content data (e.g., media content) is received and rendered in a receiver device by a client application, such as a streaming media client. Among other delays, received content data may be subject to delays due to handling of the content data by a protocol stack of the receiver device. While the receiver device may be configured to anticipate a certain level of delay, if there is more or less delay than anticipated, performance of the streaming media client may be adversely affected. For example, the streaming media client may begin presentation of content data, or the streaming media client may launch, either too early or too late. When the streaming media client begins to present the content data too early, presentation stalls may result due to lack of sufficient data for smooth presentation of content. When the streaming media client begins to present the content data too late, among other things, the streaming media client may delay presentation of the content data longer than strictly necessary, degrading the channel change performance and increasing overall latency unnecessarily.